Thank You for Smoking
by Hawki
Summary: Oneshot: He was back in the COG now, and that meant following certain standards. No matter how bizarre they were.


**Thank You for Smoking**

It was Frost. Bad stuff always happened in Frost.

Such were J.D.'s thoughts as he leaned against the guard post leading to Gate 4 of Settlement 3. Bad stuff happened in Frost. It happened because Frost was when any given hemisphere was at its coldest. When it was at its coldest, people froze. People starved. They might get eaten by bears, or fall into a frozen lake or something. Bad stuff happened in Frost, and during the Locust War, bad things happened all the more. Because not only were you at risk of freezing, or starving, or having parts of you amputated because of frostbite, but you were still forced to contend with a race of psychopaths who wanted you dead. If the Locust had any concept of seasons, there was no sign of it, as they'd still kept coming to the surface. Still kept killing every human they could find. And it was in Frost, towards the end of the war, that Jacinto had been sunk in a bid to defeat the Locust. Costing the COG what had been its last refuge for fourteen years, and fuelling the growth of the lambent in the process.

Bad stuff happened in Frost. He shivered, before lighting a cigarette, watching its smoke drift lazily into the frigid air. Mere months ago, he, Kait, Del, and dear ol' dad had discovered that the Locust had never really gone away, that humanity had only been given a breather. Now, they were back as the Swarm, and just as intent on finishing the job the Locust had started. And he, James Dominic Fenix, was back in the COG, now a measly private, freezing outside Settlement 2. Knowing that it was Frost, that bad things happened in Frost, and that this was in the context of a planet that seemed intent on killing him.

_No pressure right? _He took a puff of the cigarette. _Oh that's good._

His dad had told him not to smoke. He suspected that if he hadn't said that, he'd have never taken up the habit. Still, while he might listen to Marcus Fenix in some regards (e.g. Frost was bad), other things? Not so much. He took another puff – maybe he was poisoning his lungs, but chances were he'd die long before that became an issue.

"Well," said a voice. "I'd call you smoking hot, but…"

He looked over and saw Kait nearby. Clad in the same armour that he was, a Lancer slung over her back.

"Hmm?" He asked. He turned around and got to his feet. "What?"

"Sorry." She shrugged. "Thought I'd have a better punchline."

"So, in the absence of anything following but, I…am smoking hot?" He smirked.

"Ugh, gross."

"Your loss Kait." He inhaled more of the cigarette and blew the smoke out to her. She waved her hand in a bid to clear it.

"You know that's a disgusting habit, right?"

J.D. Shrugged and leant back against the guard post. He inhaled some more.

"That you're poisoning yourself?"

He blew out the smoke to the side this time, and extended the cigarette to her. "Want some?"

"Ugh, no."

"Why not? Not your thing?"

"Poisoning my body? Yeah, that's totally my thing."

"Yeah, but you have tried it right?" J.D. waited for an answer, but none was forthcoming. "Right?"

Kait rubbed her arm and looked away.

"Holy shit, you haven't." He walked over to her and took her hands.

"J.D., the fuck you doing?"

"Here." He put the cigarette between her fingers. "Try it." He leant back against the guardhouse, smirking as Kait looked down at the cigarette like he'd just handed her a slug.

"Seriously?" she asked.

"Come on, live a little. We could be dead tomorrow for all we know."

Kait scowled. "I hate you," she murmured, before taking a breath, and promptly coughing immediately afterwards, bending over as she did so.

"Oh God," she said, still spluttering. She handed the cigarette back to J.D. "That's…wow." She continued to cough before looking up at him, to see him take another puff himself. "How the heck do you smoke those?"

"Easy. I open my mouth, put it in, inhale, then exhale."

"Yeah, but-"

"The hell is this?"

_Oh shit._

He didn't bother hiding the cigarette, because he knew Lieutenant Osgood would have already seen it. She had the eyes of a hawk, and the temperament of one as well, regarding every Gear under her command like a mouse liable to be swept down on and devoured.

"Ma'am." J.D. gave her a small salute. Kait gave her an either smaller one. Osgood, for her part, gave them both a withering look, as if unsure which one of them to chew out more. J.D.'s initial guess was Kait, but eventually she turned her eyes to J.D.

_Here it comes. Daddy's boy, nepotism, Jinn should have thrown you in the stockade, blah blah blah. _

She suddenly grabbed the cigarette from his hand.

_Or that, I suppose._

"The hell is this?" Osgood asked.

"Um, didn't you ask that question fifteen seconds ago?" J.D. asked.

She smacked him.

"Ow!"

"I said, what, the hell, is this?" she snapped.

"It's…a cigarette?" Kait asked.

Osgood glared at her. "Was I talking to your private?"

Kait said nothing.

"Was I talking to you?!"

Without lowering her gaze, and meeting Osgood's glare with her own, she murmured, "no, ma'am."

"No. I wasn't. I want to talk to Outsiders, I'll do it in the interrogation room." She turned back to J.D. "You were smoking."

"Duly noted."

"You aware that smoking is prohibited among Gears?"

"Since when?!"

"Since of yesterday at fourteen-hundred. No Gear is to participate in the consumption of tobacco or related product."

"That's bullshit!"

She smacked him again. It took all of J.D.'s effort not to grab her wrist mid smack and break it.

"Listen Fenix," Osgood snapped. "I know you think you're riding high. Son of Marcus Fenix-"

_Oh good, we do get to have the speech again._

"…riding high on surviving the Swarm and all that crap. But get it through your head Fenix – you're nothing. You're a private, you're under my command, and if it was up to me, you wouldn't even be that."

"So…thank God it's not up to you then?"

He expected Osgood to slap him again. Instead, she tossed the cigarette down into the snow. J.D. watched it burn with mild interest, having the sudden urge to piss on it. Or better yet, Osgood's boots.

"Potato duty, seven days," Osgood said.

Yep – pissing on her boots was much more appealing right now. Or, as he watched her leave, tackling her into the ground.

"So," Kait said. She walked beside J.D. as the lieutenant walked further along the city's wall to find some more Gears to torment. "That went well."

He shrugged. "Could've been worse."

"That from experience? Or supposition?"

"Both."

"Ah." She turned her smirk into a smile, and J.D. noticed it. That, and how the snow was being caught in her hair, making him want to piss all the more for some reason.

"Anyway," Kait said. "Guess I'll see you at dinner." She began to walk off. "Do a good job with the potatoes, or there'll be hell to pay."

"Yeah," J.D. murmured. "Sure." He leant back against the guardhouse, watching Kait go. Watching Osgood go. Watching a Gear get up from one of the foxholes further along in the perimeter, look around, and light another cigarette for him.

"Bout time Del," he murmured.

Del grinned, and the two began to smoke.

* * *

_A/N_

_So, fun little fact, there's explicitly not going to be any smoking in _Gears 5 _because of Truth Initiative, an anti-smoking group. That, and Rod Fergusson's own anti-smoking stance, which contributed to the lack of smoking in _Gears of War 4_._

_Now, you might expect me to yell "social justice warriors," but I won't in this case, in part because it's coming from Fergusson himself, in part because the 'censoring' of smoking isn't make or break for me, and I say that as someone whose experience with smoking is with weed once as a teenager and nothing else. Still, did give me the idea to drabble this up at least. And yes, I know J.D.'s a captain by the timeframe of _Gears 5_, and Kait's a corporal, but, I dunno - late promotion maybe?_


End file.
